Xubuntu + Compiz = Pretty pretty Xubuntu

Note to users of 8.04 or 8.10:flotoonie and Ivotron report that this guide also works for Xubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron”, which I can confirm myself, and Ravan reports that it works for Xubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex”.

Note to users of 9.04: According to shadowsky and Andrew, Compiz also works in 9.04, except that you might not be able to use the more efficient way described below. If I get 9.04 running myself I’ll see if I can update this post with my own information. Until then, the section has been updated to link to instructions provided by sisco311 in the comments.

With the release of Xubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon”, Xubuntu looks better than ever. However, it can look better still, with the breathtaking effects provided by Compiz. How would you like all your windows zooming out into little thumbnails to give you an overview a la Mac OS X’s Exposé? Or what about flipping through your windows Cover Flow-style (or Flip 3D-style, for that matter)? And then you haven’t even experienced the joy of your windows casting shadows on your desktop, or wobbling like jelly as you drag them!

And that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg as there are many more features for you to discover – after you’ve installed it using this guide :).

Preliminary note: your graphics card should support it. Most cards from Nvidia and ATI are supposed to work, as well as some cards from Intel. Most likely you will need to enable the proprietary, non-open source drivers using the Restricted Drivers Manager in Applications->System->Restricted Drivers Manager.

Before we start, I should also note that Compiz has not made a stable (i.e. 1.0) release, and undoubtly you will experience bugs yourself. This could include the occasional crash, your window borders disappearing (you can get them back by pressing Alt+F2 and entering “emerald” or, if that doesn’t work, “xfwm4″), windows being black in their entirety, or even being thrown out of your graphical environment completely. Be aware of the risks, and don’t blame me if it breaks ;) .

A bit of history would be appropriate, so here goes. You can skip this paragraph if you already know what Compiz and Compiz Fusion are and just want to install them.
Developed within Novell (they bring you SUSE Linux) they released Compiz, a window manager with gorgeous effects to demonstrate their new XGL software which allowed better use of hardware and made these effects possible. Compiz became an independent project and kept adding astonishing new effects. As Red Hat (who bring you Red Hat Linux) developed AIGLX as an alternative to XGL, Compiz didn’t even need XGL anymore. A community formed around Compiz that made lots of useful and not-so-useful (but pretty) additions. One particular group of enhancements were not accepted into the main project and, being open source, a spin-off named Beryl that did include the enhancements was started. Beryl became very popular – perhaps even more popular than Compiz itself. However, both projects were dissatisfied with the duplicate work and found that they could settle their previous arguments. In a re-merge, most of Beryl’s plugins were made to work on Compiz under the name of Compiz Fusion. So now we have Compiz (or Compiz-core), the base system, with Compiz Fusion, which provides many additional, perhaps more experimental, plugins.

We will install Compiz as well as Compiz Fusion from the official software sources which will no longer pull along half of Gnome as it did in the previous version of Xubuntu.

A word of thanks goes out to Forlong who wrote a guide titled “How to install Compiz Fusion on Ubuntu Feisty – tutorial for advanced and/or KDE as well as Xfce users” – about the only guide that explains how to install Compiz on Xubuntu (up until now, that is ;) ). Whereas his tutorial focus[es] mostly on terminal commands I’ll explain it like I usually do – the graphical way, with loads of screenshots. Do use his excellent tutorial if you prefer using terminal commands. Be sure to note, though, that his tutorial is for version 7.04, so you’ll have to replace “feisty” with “gutsy”.

Let’s start, shall we?

Note: If you rather copy and paste a command into a terminal window, use this: sudo apt-get install compiz-core compiz-plugins compiz-fusion-plugins-main compiz-fusion-plugins-extra emerald compizconfig-settings-manager

Fire up Applications->System->Synaptic Package Manager to install the required packages. First of all, we need compiz-core. This is just pure Compiz as opposed to the compiz package which pulls along half of Gnome. Then, of course, we need the plugins that take care of all the bling – don’t worry, you can select which plugins you want to activate ;) . We need the packages compiz-plugins, compiz-fusion-plugins-main and compiz-fusion-plugins-extra. Furthermore, you might like the application to draw the window borders, Emerald, instead of Xubuntu’s default xfwm4 (if you’re unsure, you’ll probably want it). If so, select the package emerald. Last but not least, we need an application to configure Compiz to be usable, so select compizconfig-settings-manager too.
Having selected them all, you can click Apply to start the installation.

Setting it up

Before you can run your newly installed Compiz, you need to configure it a bit. In order to do so, open Applications->Settings->Advanced Desktop Effects Settings.

Beneath the “Effects” heading, click Window Decoration. In the Command input field, enter the window decorator you prefer (emerald if you installed that, xfwm4 if not).

Well, that’s about it – let’s try running it!

Running Compiz

Only one way to find out whether everything works as expected – run it! In order to do so, press Alt+F2, enter compiz --replace, then click Run. If everything works as it should, you should now see shadows around your windows!

Make it default

Now I’ll just assume that it ran successfully and that you want to have Compiz run by default every time you login. I’ll cover two ways to do that.

The easy-but-inefficient way

Using the first way Compiz will replace your default window manager every time you login. This means that, when you log in, first xfwm4 is ran which will then be replaced by Compiz, so even though xfwm4 is started, it will then be closed again without being used.

Also note that you might want to skip to the next part “Managing window decorations” if you’re going for the easy way.

For this method, you open Applications->Settings->Autostarted applications.

There, you click Add to create an entry with the following values:

Name:

Compiz Fusion

Description:

Desktop Effects

Command:

compiz --replace

Well, actually, only the last entry really matters ;)

Click OK and you’re done! The next time you login, Compiz will be started automatically.

Do note that this makes Compiz default for all users, as opposed to the previous method which made it default just for you.

Managing window decorations

It might be that you’re not always in the mood for shiny effects on your desktop – perhaps you prefer working in good old xfwm4. Fear not, as Fusion Icon is here to save the day! Fusion Icon is an application that sits in your system tray, waiting for you to right-click it. When you do, a menu will pop up so you can quickly and easily enable Compiz when your friends are watching ;-) .

If you followed “the easy-but-inefficient way” above, you’ll want to follow those steps now but replace the command with fusion-icon (and perhaps the name with “Compiz Fusion Icon”) to start it by default.

If you followed the more-difficult-but-better way and want to load this by default, you also have to follow the steps described in the-easy-but-inefficient way above (though in this case there’s nothing inefficient about it), but with the command fusion-icon --no-start (and perhaps the name “Compiz Fusion Icon”).

Take it easy

CompizConfig allows you to tweak a lot of the settings, which might be a bit overwhelming. Therefore you might feel the need for some sane defaults. Luckily, CompizConfig, in the Preferences menu, allows you to import and export profiles.

As you can guess, I’ve exported mine, so go and download it and Import it!

Troubleshooting

It might just be that it does not work for you – please say so using the comment form below, then I can share the solution with the world:

If you experience problems that you cannot solve using any of the methods above, you can revert back to Xfwm4. Of course, how to revert depends on the method you used. If you used the easy-but-inefficient way you can simply uncheck the checkbox before Compiz Fusion in Applications->Settings->Autostarted Applications. If you used the more-difficult-but-better way you have to open that configuration file again (gksudo "mousepad /etc/xdg/xfce4-session/xfce4-session.rc") and replace

Client0_Command=compiz

…with:

Client0_Command=xfwm4

Note that this will not uninstall Compiz – it will merely disable it.

If nothing happens after you have followed all the steps, it might be that you need XGL for it to work (Xubuntu by default includes AIGLX). You can simply install it using Synaptic – look for the package xserver-xgl.

Ivotron reports what’s happening when you do not have window borders and how to solve it:

For those not having window decorations after following all the steps try first by removing the contents of the .cache/sessions/ folder as mentioned by Rob Hodge.

Then, on Settings->Settings Manager->Sessions and Startup, check that ‘Automatically save session on logout’ is disabled. Also, check that if you have the ‘Prompt on Logout’ option is enabled, when you actually log out, the checkbox that appears below the ShutDown, Restart, etc.. buttons isn’t checked.

What happens is the following. If you like (as I did) to save your session so that the next time that you log in all the programs you had running appear again, this will also include the autostarted (from the xfce4-session.rc file) compiz. Then, when you log out and log in again, the XFCE session manager will try to run compiz twice (one from the xfce4-session and another from the last session), causing (at least that’s what happens to me) that the emerald window decorator never gets started (or something alike like killed by the –replace flag).

So, the conclusion. Follow all the steps, stop saving sessions and use the autostarted applications configuration instead.

If Compiz doesn’t work and you have an Nvidia graphics card, then you may need to make sure it is configured correctly. You can do so by pressing Alt+F2, typing sudo nvidia-xconfig --add-argb-glx-visuals -d 24 and pressing “Run”. With thanks to Ransom’s comment.

If you are left with just one desktop, you have to set the “Horizontal Virtual Size” in General Options->Desktop Size in the Cube settings.

i couldn’t get it to work as the default setup.. it kept loading xfcewm instead of compiz or loading no window mqanager at all. so i”d sometimes be left with no decoration as the major noticable effect. this was even after changing the xfce4-session.rc file.

He solved it by opening a terminal window (Applications->Accessories->Terminal) and typing:rm ~/.cache/sessions/*WARNING: After pressing Enter, this command will remove your saved session (i.e. the state saved if you checked “Save session” on logging out previously). If you don’t know what I’m talking about then it’s probably no problem.

Crewe did not have window decorations. Though the steps he took are quite complicated, and he needed to install Metacity, GNOME’s window manager, he solved his problem. I am not sure whether this will work for you, and it is probably safest to assume it won’t. For those still interested:

Hi thanks for this guide. I followed it step by step (well, it is easy) and i can get all the stuff working properly only using emerald window decorator. If i try to use the default xfwm4 (i’d prefer it) compiz starts but no windows dec loads. Any idea? Thanks (are u using compiz or the default composite options in the pictures with the default xubuntu theme?)

iomicifikko, I use Emerald (use another theme now, though). I’ve ran xfwm4 in my sister’s account though, that worked fine. Have you set xfwm4 in CompizConfig? Also, if you open a terminal window and type “xfwm4″, does that display any errors?
(If you use IRC, you can also try to ask for help in #xubuntu on FreeNode… Need to do a post on that too ;) )

sy, ah, if your card is supported it apparently needs Xgl to be able to run Compiz. I think you can follow this guide for that. For the section where it has a few lines you can copy and paste for Gnome and KDE, the Xfce lines would be:

I see you have avant working, my install on xubuntu wont work properly. I just cant seem to add any launchers to it nothing works, i cant drag and drop or use the menu. I’d LOVE to get this working properly just to finish off the eyecandy fest that is xubuntu with compiz. Any help would be appreciated.

Craig, I’ve already removed AWN because it was getting too annoying, but anyway…

I had it working by just installing the package from the Ubuntu repositories, but I later installed the development version of AWN which included many more plugins. You might try that and see if it works.
(Note: I could drag and drop by opening Thunar, browsing to /usr/share/applications/ and then dragging the application icons from there onto AWN. It’s Xfce that lacks drag-and-drop support from/to the menu and panels.)

Your tip worked a treat, i can see why you dumped it though, it is still a bit ‘glitchy’ half the plaugins dont work properly, but so far its doing what i wasnt it to do. Are there any alternatives that run smoother? Having a dock at the bottom of my screen looks so much better than a boring task bar :).

Well, admittedly, it didn’t really run that glitchy with me, it was just unpractical – took up too much space and autohide was annoying. Furthermore, I found it hard to recognise my individual windows – I guess I’m just used more to text.

Anyway, as for alternatives, I haven’t really investigated it. I believe there were Cairo Dock and probably some Gdesklets.

I find that quite a few of the plugins don’t work properly, such as the gmail one, just shows a white line where the icon should be. Also when opening a new window often some of the icons corrupt, only to fix itself 10 seconds or so later.

Ah, yes, now that you mention it – I experienced that too. I suppose the plugins you see in the screenshot are mainly those that did work, but there were a few other ones I’d have liked to use but didn’t work. Ah well…

Ransom, I would add it but I want to know exactly what it does and why you needed to do that before I recommend it to my readers (wow, that sounds good ;) ). So, could you tell me what it does and why you need to do it? Thanks in advance.

Thank you very much for this tutorial.
Just have two little problems, firefox and thunderbird are just two big black windows. Firefox when run in safe mode is ok. Do you know how to make these two visible?
Thanks

yvan, it’s the notorious Black Window Bug. Seems that a newer Nvidia driver would be able to fix this a little bit (as in: make it happen less frequently) but that still wouldn’t help you get rid of it.
I experience the problem myself, too, though not that often. I can make the contents of the window visible again by resizing it (sometimes I have to try multiple times to find the right size) but it’s far from ideal.

Thanks for the great instructions — works fine for me on Xubuntu Gutsy.

However, one problem: using Compiz, new windows sometimes open below the current one (not all the time, but I haven’t figured out the pattern). Does anyone know how to fix this? i.e., new windows should always open on top.

Most annoying is that this happens for the Xfce panel timer applet — the “Beep! Time’s up” alert window appears below all other windows (it used to open nicely on top under xfwm4).

marianne, I had the same problem but I’ve found a solution. In Applications->Settings->Advanced Desktop Effects Settings, you click General Options, then you open the tab Focus & Raise Behaviour where you see the value for Focus Prevention Windows set to any. Empty that field to make sure all windows can get on top when created.

I was given an older laptop and have Xubuntu up and running, but am getting the same error as has been mentioned: XGL not found. I’ve gotten it through apt, but still get that XGL isn’t found. I’m not sure what my graphics card is, either, since it’s a hand-me-down.
Also, whenever I open a new window it’s slightly above the screen, so I can’t move it around. Thanks for the tutorial, btw.

craig, the only thing I can advise is to double-check whether you really have xserver-xgl installed. As for the weird placement of new windows: when you press Alt and then click a window you can drag it around. I suppose if you close the window in the right position then it will open in that same position next time.

@hecatae, swiftfox & potatofield – sorry, I really have no idea what the problem is and why, so all of a sudden, so many people experience this problem. I can only guess that this is a bug with the Compiz package in Ubuntu and can only suggest that you report a bug (perhaps it’s even already been reported) – there are a lot of knowledgeable people there that might be able to help you.

However, I don’t get why I do not experience this problem myself (I also used the more-difficult-but-better way).

@potatofield – that depends on the method you used. If you used the easy-but-inefficient way you can simply uncheck the checkbox before Compiz Fusion in Applications->Settings->Autostarted Applications. If you used the more-difficult-but-better way you have to open that configuration file again (gksudo "mousepad /etc/xdg/xfce4-session/xfce4-session.rc") and replace

If you do, you can delete the sessions and start with a clean one (this means that, next time you log in, your applications won’t be started automatically anymore).

In order to clear your sessions, open Applications->Accessories->Thunar File Manager, press Ctrl+L and enter the location ~/.cache/. In there, delete the sessions folder, then logout and log back in again. That should do the trick :)

If it doesn’t work, be sure to check back here in a day or two because it’s late here in The Netherlands and I’m off to bed ;)

but any time I type in compiz --replace all the title bars and edges disapear so i can’t move it or select another application. so I turn it back to xfwm4 and it runs and everything returns what am I doing wrong

I am using emerald and anytime I type in compiz --replace in a terminal I get this

In order to clear your sessions, open Applications->Accessories->Thunar File Manager, press Ctrl+L and enter the location ~/.cache/. In there, delete the sessions folder, then logout and log back in again. That should do the trick

i can’t wirte “~” wheni run linux on my pc, and it doenst work to copy and paste. isd there a other way to get to the sessions folder?

ok.. here is my problem /( i think) I have messed up the xfwm4. i can’t minimize, or move any of my windows, and i saved the session so that it was the same after i restarted my computer. so i need a way to delete my sessions. i can’t do it this way:

In order to clear your sessions, open Applications->Accessories->Thunar File Manager, press Ctrl+L and enter the location ~/.cache/. In there, delete the sessions folder, then logout and log back in again. That should do the trick

beacuse i’m unable to whrite “~” on my computer and i can’t copy from firefox and paste in the file manager.

@potatofield – the ~ points to your home directory. Alternatively, you can also write /home/potatofield/.cache/ (that is assuming your username is potatofield, if not, replace it with your actual username).

@Triscal – the Compiz community is probably able to help you better than I am, but what happens if you type emerald --replace after you started Compiz?

Thanks for the article. I’m having an issue getting this to work, however. I have installed the xgl server, but get this response in my terminal:
Checking for Xgl: not present.
No whitelisted driver found
aborting and using fallback: /usr/bin/metacity
no /usr/bin/metacity found, exiting

I know that this should work because it was working when I had Ubuntu installed on my laptop (Ubuntu ran too slow so I switched to Xubuntu). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Wow, I thought this would be a simple question. Turns out to be quite complicated trying to get direct rendering running on my system. I’ll just post the ubuntu forum thread to keep this from being a lengthy post. Any gurus out there who want a challenge?http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=690531
And, if you’re having problems getting this to work on a fresh Xubuntu install, you might want to check to make sure that direct rendering has been enabled.

hello i tried your tutorial on my eee, and installment of all packages was really good, very nice. only thing is now that when i run “compiz –replace” that windows loose their decor. i can though revert to “xwfm4″. Im not sure if i have xgl, cant see it in my system, cant search for it either (it doesnt appear).

do you know what i can do? without me killing xubuntu. Thanks.

PS: i run the eeexubuntu (gnome i assume). And yes im a newbie, but learning fast.

Didn’t it? Hmm… When you open up a terminal window (Applications->Accessories->Terminal</code) and enter emerald --replace in there, what do you get?

Emerald "draws" the window borders around your windows, just like xfwm4 does. You can't run xfwm4 on top of Compiz though.

The system monitor was written for GNOME, and thus has GNOME in the name. However, it can just as well be used in Xfce, and because it offers a lot of functionality, the Xubuntu developers decided to add it.

No. but i would like to believe my constant attempts of replacing this and that, could have made it seem like that. Anyhow, got it to work a brief moment now, but everywhere i clicked in the advanced desktop settings was off all the time. Also i suddenly got a crooked line thru my screen on fast moves (bottom left to top right). As it seemed that brief moment (which i cannot provoke back again) wasnt really worth it. A shame, really wanted the wall desktop and the scaling windows (basically it).

Hi, to make compiz the default I used the xfce4-session method (the more-dififcult-but-better way), and it works fine as long as I don’t save the session at logout (i.e. the tickbox in the shutdown prompt).

If I save session at logout, next time that I start my system, compiz will not start, and fcwm4 won’t start either; the result is that there is no window frames or title.

Has this hapenend to any of you? does compiz fail to start if you save session? I’d like to confirm that it’s not only me. (I use Xubuntu 7.10)

I think there is another method to make compiz default (not using xfce-session), I can’t find it again, if anyone knows the link I’d appreciate it.

David, now that you mention it – my sister has this issue, and she does save her session on logout. I just had never realized that to be the cause. Unfortunately, I do not know of a solution, but I set her window manager to Xfwm4 so she still has the effects, just without the transparent window borders.

I actually forgot to mention something on the last post but I can’t exactly delete it :P but I’ve been messing around with my xorg.conf file, and I’ve also tried installing nvidia-glx-new to see what might come of it but now, I can’t get into my account without the sever crashing as it were.

The login screen is fine, I log in, on any account btw, and I get the default desktop background for say… 10 second, and then I’m booted back out to the login screen, any clues? I’ve already removed the saved session files.

John, it has been done on the EeePC, so I’d say: go for it! :) I’m running a 512 MB+AMD Athlon XP 2200+ system myself and it works fine.
(Reading through that page, you do seem to need to install libgl1-mesa-dri in advance, which you can just do through Synaptic)

It works for me on Kubuntu without XGL, but not in Xubuntu.
When I run compiz –replace, The window pane dissapears and the desktop becomes inactive. The only way for me to restore it is by runnig xfwm 4 &

I have the same problem the last 2 people above me had.. with an intel card.. when i run “compiz –replace” (i even tried it in the console), it removes the windows borders and I have to type xfwm4 to get back control.. It says I dont have XGL installed, but i installed xserver-xgl package.. it’s there. here’s what it outputs in the terminal when i try the compiz –replace:

@ldp, Ace and Stephen – I’m sorry, I’m really frustrated that I can’t help… What I would recommend is to report a bug on Launchpad (and link to it here). If it’s a bug it might get fixed, if not people there might be able to help you.

I decided to try xubuntu and compiz, installed xubuntu, installed compiz, installed nvidia-glx, replaced xfwm4 with compiz, used the sudo nvidia-xconfig –add-argb-glx-visuals -d 24 and restarted the pc….
starts compis fizion, but I do not get cube (I get 2 sided flat spin), window border disapeared(emerald or emerald –replace – nothing happens), try to start terminal I got white screen, when I try to shutdown pc it takes time (3/4 minutes) untill I can see shutdown option.
other thing I miss in this compiz fusion is the plugin rise above window, I have it on my other pc but it is puppy distro. How can I add extra plugins for compiz?

bra333, you can configure a lot with CompizConfig, and I could make a very long comment explaining how to. You can certainly use it to enable “the Cube” – see also its wiki page for help on enabling all the plugins you like.

As for your other problems – I’m sorry, they appear to be bugs (have you installed emerald?) with which I’m not sure I can help you :(

emerald is downloaded, the cube is enabled but I have only 1 flat spinning desktop not a cube, I have another desktop pc with wNOP and I know how to use compiz and all the plugins and keybindings.
thanks for the try,
I will give I try with tux repositary and get compiz from there…

Ah, then you have to set the “Horizontal Virtual Size” (or something like that – I’m not at a computer using Compiz atm) in General Options->Desktop Size in the Cube settings.

If you mean the Trevino repository then I wouldn’t recommend that as the official repository is bound to be far more stable. Plus, pulling Compiz from another source isn’t going to change your personal settings.

nicholas, that means that you might have to install the official driver for your graphics card. While this will make your desktop experience much smoother, be aware that this driver is not open source. If you don’t mind, open Applications->System->Restricted Drivers Manager and check the checkbox next to the driver for your card (probably from nVidia). It will then download and install it, and activate it after you have rebooted your computer.

Hmm… If you have an integrated video card, then I think it might be that your card does not support hardware acceleration, which Compiz depends on. Sorry :(

If you do want fancy desktop effects, what you might try is enabling Xfce’s native effects through Applications->Settings->Window Manager Tweaks, below the Compositing tab. While it doesn’t all of the effects Compiz has to offer, it can add a very nice touch to your desktop. Note that, if your video card does not support hardware acceleration, this might result in a performance drop, but if that’s the case, you can always turn it off again :)

Thanks Vincent, it was really horizontal virtual size setting …
other thing I miss is rise above desktop plugin bur will see ….any idea how to add it …. here is a video on my other compiz and as can see the windows are avove the desktop….http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMwNFytakiI
I will appreciate if you know how to fix that also

Hi.I have enabled compositing and now the program windows are sluggish when dragged around.I have onboard intel graphics with 64 mb.Is that the problem?.Will upgrading to a powerful card make compositing smoother?.What graphics card would you recommend?

Yep, that definitely sounds like an underpowered graphics card. Unfortunately, that’s about all I can say about it, as I’m really not into hardware. Intel is supposed to work good with open source and ATI has been making strides recently with publishing open source drivers. nVidia has always supported Linux, but with closed source drivers.
Still, I recommend you to ask it over at the Ubuntu Forums, as I’m sure there will be plenty of people there to help you. In fact, it has probably already been asked a gazillion times, so a quick search should bring it up :)

I am curious how you got Compiz/Compiz-Fusion to run with xfwm4 as the decorator… I tried and failed. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE MurrinaStormCloud and the xfce-4.5-svn xfwm4 decorator theme, but I would like to run it with Compiz.

Well, eviirthaang, I didn’t really do that quite consciously. In the Compiz settings manager, I set xfwm4 as the fallback window manager. Now she did something which prevented Emerald from running in her account (which I coincidentally fixed this morning), and I guess that’s what made Compiz run xfwm4.
If you also want to run xfwm4, what you *could* do is uninstall Emerald after you set xfwm4 as the fallback window manager. Emerald should then not be able to run and xfwm4 should be ran instead.
Good luck,

I set it up om my Eee pc that has eeexubuntu, and it killed my multi desktop, and it also took out all the tool bars, I got them from the Synaptic Package Manager and then hit the alt+f2 and put in the compiz –replace that is when it bugged up. I know it can be done on the eeepc one of my friends has one with them all set up. Please help me fix this I like having the four desktops rather then just the one.

The method to disable it depends on how you enabled it. If you used the easy-but-inefficient way then you can simply open Application->Settings->Autostarted Applications and uncheck Compiz’s entry.
If you used the more-difficult-but-better way then you need to run gksudo "mousepad /etc/xdg/xfce4-session/xfce4-session.rc" again and replace Client0_Command=compiz with Client0_Command=xfwm4.

As for your window management problems: I’m sorry, I really wouldn’t know what causes that. Can you see the window borders? If not, try running emerald --replace.

Sorry to bug you once again, but do you know if there is a way that I would be able to install compiz on to my sd card. I am running eeeXubuntu on a 2gb Eee pc… Mostly I would like to have the desktop cube, or a atleast would you know on the space it would take to install?

@euripyd – if you want to disable it you’d have to remove it from the autostarted applications just like you added it before. Alternatively, you could completely uninstall Compiz.

@StAR – if you can install other applications to your SD card I suppose you can use the same way to install Compiz there. I’m not sure what exactly you mean by “installing to an SD card”, perhaps you could elaborate on that.

I am able to install .Deb files to my SD card, I really don’t understand on what you are not understanding about installing to a sd card. Un-less you are unsure what a sd card is… If so a sd card is like a flash card for a camera The only way I could think of doing it is going in and telling the computer that my sd card slot and my sd card is a hard drive of its own… But the problem with that is that from what I know the packet manager will only install packets to the hard drive that has the OS on it… To let you know about my self, I am kinda new to linux. I don’t know my way around it very well, I just learn from what people tell me, and what I have seen done.

OK, that really sounds like it’s practically impossible. When you install a .deb file, it (among other actions) extracts a lot of files and drops them all over the system. These files need to be there for the applications to be able to run. So if you wanted to achieve this, you’d have to create a lot of partitions on your SD card and set up your system during installation to look for those folders on those specific partitions, and I doubt it’s big enough for that because you’d also need to save all other applications there.
Why would you want to install Compiz to your SD card, by the way? There might just be another way to accomplish what you want…

OK, so how do you do that with other applications?
What you could try, is installing Xubuntu to the SD card and put your home directory on the internal hard drive (also put /boot on there or make the SD card bootable). Still, 4GB for a system and 2GB for personal files is not that much, so you’ll run into problems sooner or later.

Dear Sir
Started having trouble with xubuntu, right after I put in compiz –replace. All window borders have disappeared, I am unable to type anything in with the keyboard(except on firfox), I tried following the xgl instructions, a bit lost. Am using xubuntu 8.04 beta, any ideas?
Thanks

Hi Vincent
Yeah managed to sort it out using xserver xgl and restarted. New problem, dont know if it has to do with compiz, I moved the panel from top to bottom(from your make xubuntu look like vista). I now only have one work space, put pager on and applications->settings manager-> workspace and margins. Increased work spaces to 4, but still only have one workspace. Trying to get cube to rotate, only end up with the a flat screen rotating.
And my pc started running slower after installing compiz
AMD X3800 X2 running -> X86 Xubuntu
2 gb ram
ati x1900gt should I install a driver?

Hi again
Yup, worked like a charm. Installed driver for hardware devices, works brilliantly.
New question: Is Xubuntu beter than kubuntu or ubuntu, or are they pretty much the same in terms of performance and looks.
Having trouble putting the task bar in making it look like more like vista.
Any themes you recommend?
Thanks

Which one is better fully depends on your preferences. They’re about as different to eachother as they are to Windows in terms of getting used to (not entirely true, Ubuntu and Xubuntu share more than Kubuntu with either, but still, they’re all sufficiently different that you can really prefer one over the other). When it comes to performance, Xubuntu is best, though (well, there are more alternatives, but of these three, Xubuntu is best). Plus, you can run all applications regardless of which platform they were written for. If it works on Xubuntu, then it will also work on Ubuntu and Kubuntu, and the other way around.

For the taskbar, well, that’s not really up to the theme as the taskbar in Windows is entirely different from the rest of the application, so you’ll have to set a background image like on Vista’s as I described in the Vista-lookalike post.

I got the compiz all set after installing xgl and my system is now running slower. I also read above about using the restricted drivers might speed it up. I dont see my graphics card in there. I have an ATI mobility 7200. Is there anything that can be done to speed up my system the way it was before?
Thanks

I would really like to know how you managed to get the xfce window manager to work with compiz.I do not like emerald.I put xfwm4 in the effects>window decoration area of ccsm.But the borders disappear instantly when i start compiz.I have nvidia geforce 6200.It handles all the effects compiz has to offer and the Aero in vista.Please reply

Well, eviirthaang, I didn’t really do that quite consciously. In the Compiz settings manager, I set xfwm4 as the fallback window manager. Now she did something which prevented Emerald from running in her account (which I coincidentally fixed this morning), and I guess that’s what made Compiz run xfwm4.
If you also want to run xfwm4, what you *could* do is uninstall Emerald after you set xfwm4 as the fallback window manager. Emerald should then not be able to run and xfwm4 should be ran instead.
Good luck,

i couldn’t get it to work as the default setup.. it kept loading xfcewm instead of compiz or loading no window mqanager at all. so i”d sometimes be left with no decoration as the major noticable effect. this was even after changing the xfce4-session.rc file. (i think this was ace’s problem, as well)

what i had to do was delete the session cache files with a rm ~/.cache/sessions/*

Very nice article! I’m just starting to use Xubuntu (8.04) and I’d
like to try using Compiz. However, when I try either the command line
or the GUI, it can’t compiz-* anywhere. Where the packages located?

I just checked on packages.ubuntu.com, but the Compiz packages should just be there in 8.04 (Hardy). If you used Applications->System->Synaptic Package Manager, are you sure you pressed “Reload”?

By the way, if you do manage to install Compiz using this guide, could you please leave another comment? I’m not sure whether it also works for 8.04 (I’m *still* not using it myself, final exams and stuff…) so if it does, I could add that to the article. (And of course, if not, I’ll have to write an updated guide :) )

For those not having window decorations after following all the steps try first by removing the contents of the .cache/sessions/ folder as mentioned by Rob Hodge.

Then, on Settings->Settings Manager->Sessions and Startup, check that ‘Automatically save session on logout’ is disabled. Also, check that if you have the ‘Prompt on Logout’ option is enabled, when you actually log out, the checkbox that appears below the ShutDown, Restart, etc.. buttons isn’t checked.

What happens is the following. If you like (as I did) to save your session so that the next time that you log in all the programs you had running appear again, this will also include the autostarted (from the xfce4-session.rc file) compiz. Then, when you log out and log in again, the XFCE session manager will try to run compiz twice (one from the xfce4-session and another from the last session), causing (at least that’s what happens to me) that the emerald window decorator never gets started (or something alike like killed by the –replace flag).

So, the conclusion. Follow all the steps, stop saving sessions and use the autostarted applications configuration instead.

Hi, nice tutorial, but I can’t figure how to use compiz with xfwm4 instead of emerald it always gives me this error:
(xfwm4:7928): WARNING **: Another Window Manager is already running
This happens when I specify xfwm4 as window decorator in the compiz settings and then run compiz –replace. Actually everything works but without window decorations. Any idea on how to force xfwm4 to work under compiz??

Hi Vincent
Sorry I am using ubuntu 8.04 now, so just wanted to know if you could help me.
I am having trouble with changing the panel color to match the theme for ubuntu. Ubuntu is a bit different from the xubuntu so just needed a bit of help with that.
Already have emerald and xubuntu installed so any ideas?
Thanks

As far as I know, the theme can include specific hints to the colour of the Xfce panel, however, I suppose most themes only take into account the GNOME panels. If you mail me the theme and tell me what you want, I can take a look and see if I can make it theme the Xfce panels :)

Hi
Yeah I’m using ubuntu so, I dont think it will still use Xfce? But I’ve seen quite a few gnome look themes, that include he panel in the screen shots. But I am not exacly sure, if Im supposed to be looking for GTK 1.X,GTK 2.X, Beryl or Compiz for the ubuntu.
I thought this was pretty good,http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Dark+Ice+Emerald?content=70284
Just looking for something black and shiny.
I dont know if it will change the panels and scroll bars. It worked in xubuntu, but its not really working in ubuntu.
Thanks

Ah, I see. That is just an Emerald theme, meaning that it will only change your window borders when running Emerald. I recommend you to contact the author to ask him which theme he’s using in the screenshot :)

Thanks for your great post; my Compiz was starting with no window decorator, but modifying my xfce4-session.rc file and following Rob’s advice of deleting saved sessions and not saving sessions worked great.

Thanks Mariuz. I won’t add it to the article yet because we don’t know if it will break before 8.10 is released, so people might end up here after that and find it doesn’t work. But it’s good to know it works at 27 August 2008 :)

Thanks for the howto, works well up to a point and had to follow the hints from Ivotron to get windows decorations. One problem I have is that some applications Firefox and Terminal to name two, will open up OK with decorations, but the title bar is above screen height, so I have to move the window down to see the title bar. This happens even if the window opens maximised. Anyway to fix this?

Hy yvan, in Advanced Desktop Effects Settings (see “Setting it up” above), under Window Management there’s the Place Windows option where you can select Placement Mode which, according to Jose (thanks!), should be set to Cascade. (With Place Windows enabled, of course)

Next issue is with thunar, when running with “tree” as opposed to places. When running with “tree” I can gurantee a crash (window darkens and requires forced quit) on a regular basis when trying to browse the tree. Half resolved this by changing back to “places” which has ensured no crashes with thunar. Not necessarily compiz related but problem seems to be worse when running compiz.

I can confirm this works on Xubuntu 8.10 too. The only things I am missing in the article is (at least mention of) Fusion Icon, the system tray icon for Compiz management, and some pointers (or links) to managment of and themes for Emerald.

I will test with installing and using FusionIcon and might get back with a small step-by-step later…

Quick how-to:
1. Download one or both .emerald files from the link above (or browse to any other themes that are suitable for Beryl/Compiz + Emerald that seem nicer).
2. Go to the menu Applications->Settings-> and open the Emerald Theme Manager.
3. Click in the Emerald Theme Manager window on the Import button and browse to and open the downloaded .emerald file.
4. After succesful import, the new theme will show in the Themes list. Select it and watch the window decoration change :)

A final but VERY nice tip: Install Cairo Dock to finish it all :) It is a lightweight fast and beatifull dock (unlike AWN as far as I am concerned) and it has some nice OSX type dock looks along with excellent plugins too. Find all you need to know on http://www.cairo-dock.org/ww_page.php?p=From%20the%20repository&lang=en#7-Ubuntu about easily adding the repo and installing it on your system. After installation you can test it by opening a terminal window and entering cairo-dock. Select a theme (suggestion: @Aero theme to start with) and try it out! If you like the dock and want to auto start it upon each login do this:
1. Go to the menu Applications->Settings->Autostarted
2. Click Add
3. Enter Name: Cairo Dock and Command: cairo-dock

@Richfrog,
Looks like Compiz cannot find the Emerald window manager and defaults to Metacity using its default theme Clearlooks. This wm is not on your system either, hence the error. Install Emerald by doing ‘sudo apt-get install emerald’ in a terminal window. After that, you should be good to go except that you might want to find some nice theme to install. See my comment above for some pointers :)

@Vincent and all,

A follow-up on my previous comment:
Like you, I am using Fusion Icon now and it works fine. I decided to load fusion-icon (and compiz automatically with it) upon login so that I can have other users on the same system with plain xfwm4 as window manager. The reason for many people for using XFCE is not only is it fast but (more imortantly) it has a low memory footprint while still being as easy to handle as Gnome or KDE. I have not compared plain xfwm4 with compiz+emerald on added memory use but I do not doubt the latter is heavier.

These are the extra steps I took for Fusion Icon:
1. Do in terminal “sudo apt-get install fusion-icon”
2. Go to your menu Applications->Settings->Configuration Manager and open Autostarted Apps
3. Click Add
4. Enter Name: Fusion Icon
5. Then at Command enter one of the following depending on if and how you start Compiz:
a. If you have defined compiz as the defaut wm in /etc/xdg/xfce4-session/xfce4-session.rc (the ‘more-difficult-but-better way’) use the command ‘fusion-icon –no-start’ (without the quotes)
b. Else use the command ‘fusion-icon’ (without the quotes) but take care that if you have an entry in your startup list with the compiz –replace command (the ‘easy-but-inefficient way’) be sure to REMOVE that entry!

Enjoy :)

–ravan

PS And do not forget to check out Cairo Dock, it really IS worth a try ;)

I accidentally uninstalled thunar. I am not sure how the hell I managed to do this but it happened. I lost my desktop and a whole butt-load of my setting and preferences. I got so pissed that I reinstalled xubuntu. When I reinstalled xubuntu I installed ALL compiz packages, a 3d acceleration package. A simple compiz setting option was now in my applications menu. I clicked on “ultimate” in the profile. I fooled around with it and it works!!

Truth is I’m not entirely sure what action I took that made the difference but it works!

I havent got every option working yet but I am looking forward to figuring it out!

Then I opened the XFCE MintDesktop application (in Applications -> System) and from there clicked on the Enable/Disable button for Compiz Fusion. For Compiz Fusion to be enabled at boot, click on the Enable/Disable button beside “Enable Compiz at boot” and then reboot.

I’m quite sure you can use xfwm4, as it’s been done on this very computer. What fracturedmorals said at that thread is that Compiz can’t display xfwm4 themes, which is something different then it not being able to run xfwm4 instead of Emerald.

Also, people are using xfwm4 --replace in that thread, but xfwm4 doesn’t have a replace option in the first place. It’s not working because Emerald is already running – when the original poster solved it I’m guessing it wasn’t because of gtk-window-decorator but because of removing Emerald (if you set xfwm4 as fallback window manager, it should work).

What do you mean with “it can use xfwm4 but can’t use themes”? Does this mean that it can only use the default theme? What sense does xfwm4 make if there are no themes? Doesn’t this mean that there are no window borders either?

I’m a bit confused with these terms: window decorator and window manager.

Well, I think the difference between “window manager” and “window decorator” is that is that the window manager places windows on the screen, while the window decorator draws the window borders. It does seem like a distinction made specifically by Compiz, with Compiz being the window manager and Emerald the window decorator.

By “it can’t do xfwm4 themes” I meant that Emerald cannot load a theme made for xfwm4. However, you can use xfwm4 instead of Emerald – and obviously xfwm4 does support xfwm4 themes.

Thanks for the great guide, I just finished installing Compiz on my Acer Aspire One Netbook, which I have running Xubuntu 8.10. Easy to follow instructions, and you’ve done a good job of updating the post with feedback you’ve received. Great stuff!

Crabby, I’d recommend you to post your question at the Compiz Fusion forums. I’m positive that you’ll be able to get help there – the solution for a similar problem (though with a different driver, so don’t follow those instructions) doesn’t seem that difficult. Do make sure to note the Linux distribution and version you’re using.

What kernel version are you using? If you are using 2.6.27-9 try to use 2.6.27-7 and try
(select from the grub boot menu it should be there if you have upgraded the kernel during software update like me)

I had the same problem with my HP 2133. I configure VIA driver correctly but compiz kept on complaining about “Software rasterizer”.

then I remembered from some where VIA (December 2nd, 2008) binary driver compiled against kerenel 2.6.27-7 so I rebooted to older kernel everything worked fine.

after that I just changed boot order from /boot/grub/menu.lst file to default boot from 2.6.27-7. For me new kernel doesn’t serve any special purpose so far. It was just upgraded during software update.

Hope this will help to solve your problem.

Now I’m using my HP 2133 with xubuntu + compiz it is quite nice. I have tried many many distributions but I think I’m going stick with this one, at least for now :->

Ok when i tried updating my computer it froze and the icons dissipeared on the desktop. It fully installed everything and then everything on my desktop dissapeared. When i try to restart it my computer makes a loud beep sound and nothing saves. So i have no clue what to do and i need help.

Josh, not sure what your problem is, but regarding your desktop: you might want to press Alt+F2, then run xfdesktop to make it re-appear. For the other problems, consult the above-mentioned Compiz forums or the xubuntu-users mailinglist.

Hi! I did it the way you write it and it worked really cool. The only thing is that I make compiz default (using the “more difficult but better way”) and I still get a message that says something like this: “There is no default window manager, run compiz –replace or choose another program”.

When I run “Compiz –replace” everything gets right, but I dont have it runing automaticaly.

I tried using “compiz –replace” in the startup aplications, but it works really slow.

Hi Ferguzon, which version of Xubuntu are you using and when and how do you get that message? You might be able to solve it by going into the CompizConfig Settings Manager and, in the General tab for the Window Decoration plugin set “Command” to emerald --replace, but that’s just a wild guess.

I tried to use xfmw4 as the decorator(because I like the buttons of xfce-4.5), and when I enable compiz(fusion icon) it white screens me I can move my mouse and everything but can’t get back out of compiz with out ctrl+alt+backspace. Accoreding to compiz cheek I can run compiz. What do I do?

Well, goes to show I should’ve read the comments before getting started — I suffered from the absolutely-nothing-happening-symptom when I replaced xfwm with compiz in the xfce4-session.rc file. Indeed the sessions were the bogey, and removing the current ones before restarting X did the trick.

Since, however, I’m running Debian and not Xubuntu, having Emerald starting instead of gtk-window-decorator was a slightly different process from what stated here — nothing I couldn’t figure out, though.

Thanks for an excellent post. It deserves its high google pagerank on “compiz xfce”. :)

This guide was written for Xubuntu 6.10 and above, judging by the URL you use 6.06, so it might be that this guide just doesn’t work there (if I recall correctly, I was even using Beryl on 6.06). Have you run Compiz-Check?

Hey just so everyone knows, there have been some problems with the compiz-core package in the new 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope beta. I’m currently testing this out and looking for a good fix, and i’ll post again when I get this working. There has been an update to the package that was supposed to fix the bug, but it didn’t work for me.. but everything will probably be working after another update sometime soon, it is still beta after all. For now here is the bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/141621 . And here is a thread with a fix that may work: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3993442#post3993442 .

Hey Vincent, thanks a lot for that :) looks like I may need some help with this.. if you look at the bottom of the bug page you’ll see I posted a comment (under the name fo0b4er), so hopefully someone there notices, but that could take a while. For now, I tried totally uninstalling and purging compiz as described in the bug comment two above mine, and that didn’t help. I would try what is in that forum post I linked to, but my xorg.conf file was blank so I didn’t have those lines and I don’t know how to add them. I ran dpgk-reconfigure xserver-xorg, and now there’s some stuff in there but its still pretty short and those lines aren’t there :( I do have the file “/etc/xdg/compiz/compiz-manager” as mentioned by Ramy Eid on the bug page, but it’s definitely not doing its job! echo “conf: $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS” gives me /etc/xdg/xubuntu.. is that maybe causing the aforementioned file not to be used? Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

Alright, I figured everything out :) I was being a little slow there! Basically this bug actually has been fixed in jaunty and it was really just me, so you can safely remove that warning at the beginning of the article. What happened was, my /etc/xdg/compiz/compiz-manager file was being superseded by my ~/.config/compiz/compiz-manager file. The one in /etc/xdg/ did have the proper stuff, but the one in my home directory did not! Why? BECAUSE OF THE COMPIZ-CHECK SCRIPT! Can you believe that?! Turns out that it made the file in my home dir, and only wrote in it the line “SKIP_CHECKS=yes” because I told it the script to disable error checking in compiz. When I added the proper lines to that file (see again Ramy Eid’s comment in the bug report), compiz was found and started! So, the verdict is: if you use the compiz-check script and tell it to ignore checks, it will make a custom config file without copying over whatever is in the general file! You might want to warn people about that in the article. I will update my bug comment and notify the script author in the next few minutes :)

Thanks a lot man! I am up and running on Jaunty. I gotta say I’m a n00b to the linux file system, but am a certified WindBlows admin. Yes I’m anti M$…Yes it keeps me employed and YES I’m a man torn. o_0

Anyways, I wanted to thank you for the install walk through. It had enough info that I knew what I needed to tweak and where for things to work right in Jaunty, but it was straight forward enough for a nub like me to figure it out as well.

Also, shadowsky appears correct about the rc file. I think it might have become an xml, but I’m not sure and haven’t found one with any actual settings in it yet.

Hey i just did install compiz by your instructions and set the window decorations setting to simply “xfwm4″ (mainly because i didnt find the package emerald) and everytime i use “compiz –replace” compiz seams to start up properly but i dont have any window decorations tho its enabled. the transparency seems to work out but its really hard to handle anythign without window decorations :<
any tips?
im running sidux with xfce. got an ati card and direct rendering as well as aiglx work properly

Hey, I am not familiar with Sidux at all (this is a Xubuntu Blog, after all), but from what I can tell from basic research, you need the compiz-gtk package (which should be already installed, I think), and then instead of Emerald as your window decorator you need the command gtk-window-decorator. Try that and see if you still don’t have window borders (yes you should have them ;) ). Hope that helps.

Great that it worked :) Unfortunately, I still have no idea how to explicitly set xfwm4 to be the decorator. When Emerald crashes for me (which unfortunately happens quite often…), xfwm4 takes over, but I have no idea how to set it to be the default. Sorry :(

I followed the instruction until the point where I had to start Compiz with the command: compiz –replace . Nothing happens when I use this.
I have the Xubuntu 9.04 with an ati graphic chip. what have I done wrong? The installation of the packet worked fine.

When I run compiz –replace all I get is the mouse pointer and background image and it seems to hang there I have to cold boot to get it back up

Yes I am using Xubuntu 9.0.4 Like I said in the post earlier I am using the Intel 83845g/gl Graphics Controller.

I have read so much about how people are having so much trouble with this Controller but some seem to get it working but I have tried and tried I have even messed things up trying what others have tried to get this working and had to reinstall b/c of messing the Graphics up to where everything is garbled on the screen.

Hmm, that does indeed sound like an issue with your graphics card, but that’s about as much as I can help you, unfortunately :( The only thing I can recommend you is to check whether the appropriate driver is installed through Applications->System->Hardware Drivers, but I don’t think that’s the problem. Sorry I can’t be of more help…

Everything works like a charm, thanks. Changed to compiz in no time (Xubuntu 9.04).
There is one big problem however:
When I start the Settings Manager, every change I make has no action following it. Meaning: When I close the Settings Manager, no changes have been made. As if it does not save what I want.
I couldn’t even import your profile…
What do I do, because otherwise, Compiz works fine?!

In relation to sisco311’s post, it seems Xubuntu 9.10 Karmic uses a slightly different directory for xfce4-session.xml.

I had to actually search for this since sisco311’s file didn’t work (it existed, but wasn’t being read). I then came by:

/etc/xdg/xubuntu/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-session.xml

…which appears to be the one that Xubuntu 9.10 Karmic reads. After changing that, I issued:

rm ./.cache/sessions/*

…and made sure “Save sessions” wasn’t checked off when restarting.

On start up, Compiz and Emerald booted perfectly fine. :)

I also noticed that with the easy trick, Compiz starting after the panel can cause the panel to change positions – I have the normal GNome layout of one on the top and another on the bottom, where they could both switch their positions or both go to the top or bottom, requiring me to go into their properties to reset them.

I’m on 9.10, with an intel chip and first i got the error a lot of people have : no windows decoration and something like “no suitable screen found on device 0.0″

I installed compiz-switch to be able to switch fast when everething goes kaboom and when i launched it, everything goes kaboom (the usual way). But then i launched it again to get back to xfwm4, and oh surprise, my windows got red borders! It’s the emerald theme.

Then I launched the compiz plugin manager, set up a few things, and I got everything work.

I don’t know what’s going to happen after a reboot… but, maybe it is a hint for you smart people to know what’s going on behind the scene :)

Just in case this helps anyone, I used this guide (very useful by the way) and after installing xubuntu 9.10 a few times on different machines, I think I got working and starting up in a very simple way:

1. Install the Compiz components and Emerald using Synaptic Package Manager (or just follow the beginning of this guide!)

2. Make sure no applications are running (apart from anything that would be there when you start-up normally).

3. Open Applications > Settings > Session and Startup

4. Run “compiz –replace” (without quotes) from a terminal window and then close the terminal window

5. Click “Save Session” in the session tab (you should see Compiz in there).

I’ve just did a xubuntu 11.04 fresh install and try to install compiz following this post. Everything is OK until I tried to run “compiz –replace”. Anyone can help me? Please find below the command output.

ricardo@optimus:~$ compiz –replace

Checking if settings need to be migrated …no
Checking if internal files need to be migrated …no
Backend : ini
Integration : true
Profile : default
Adding plugins
Initializing core options…done
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 1
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 0
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 1
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 1
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 1
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 1
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 1
Window created on XQueryTree, map state isViewable? 1
Initializing bailer options…done
Initializing detection options…done
Initializing composite options…done
Initializing opengl options…done
Initializing decor options…done
Initializing mousepoll options…done
Initializing vpswitch options…done
Initializing animation options…done
Initializing snap options…done
Initializing expo options…done
Initializing move options…done
Initializing place options…done
Initializing grid options…done
Initializing gnomecompat options…done
Initializing wall options…done
Initializing ezoom options…done
Initializing workarounds options…done
Initializing staticswitcher options…done
Initializing resize options…done
Initializing fade options…done
Initializing scale options…done
Initializing session options…done
Window 0x2a00284 created on ReparentNotify, map state isViewable? 0
Window 0x32001d2 created on ReparentNotify, map state isViewable? 0
Window 0x1a00330 created on ReparentNotify, map state isViewable? 0
Window 0x2a00336 created on ReparentNotify, map state isViewable? 0
Window 0x320025a created on ReparentNotify, map state isViewable? 0
Window 0x1a00379 created on ReparentNotify, map state isViewable? 0
Couldn’t find a perfect decorator match; trying all decorators
Starting emerald
Segmentation fault

Iep,
great, thanks! It worked for me. Although I added another line to file /etc/xdg/xfce4-session/xfce4-session.rc. Instead of just changing ‘xfwm4′ to ‘compiz’, you can also add another line in order to make compiz load your config settings instead of default ones. The relevant xml part should look like this:

Really, first loading xfwm4 and then loading compiz makes little sense and will increase total boot time for your session. I would really like a cleaner way to get compiz loaded, but there is probably not such in XFCE. But at least you can change the window manager, unlike under gnome 3…